Chameleon
by Katnibellamione
Summary: This is a story about Megan Hayes, the Victor from District 6 who saved Peeta's life. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1: 60th Reaping

**Chapter 1: 60th Reaping**

I hate buses and trains and cars. All kinds of transportation.

You would think that building the parts for a vehicle would lead you to love the products you make. But not me. I hate travel except when it requires only my own two feet. District 6 of the nation of Panem. Here is where I'll stay.

Except maybe not. For at 16 years of age, I could be Reaped for the 60th Annual Hunger Games, a sick competition in which the twelve districts of Panem have to send one boy and one girl of teenage years into an outdoor arena to fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins, and becomes Victor.

As I stand in my age group, the Mayor gives the Dark Days treaty. Then, he reads the names of past District 6 Victors. In the history of the Games, we have had three. Three. In 60 years. Pathetic but fortunate - poor District 12 has only two, so at least we no longer have the worst Victory record.

"The Victor of the 5th Hunger Games: Tressa Spectral!" Given that most Victors don't live past their sixties, it is remarkable that our first Victor is still alive at 71.

"The Victor of the 51st Hunger Games: Ivo Lockhearst!" The handsome youth of 25 who was crowned almost a decade ago waves. And yes, you did just hear that correctly. It took Tressa 46 years to produce an heir. Ivo's Games was awful, because we had just been through a Quarter Quell worth two arenas, which District 12 of all places won. By the time Ivo triumphed, the whole nation was exhausted.

"The Victor of the 59th Hunger Games: Justin Hix!" We cheer for last year's champion, the Victory Tour still fresh in our minds. Justin was a classmate and friend of mine in school; we took many art classes together. I was so thrilled when he came back alive, even if he did it by hiding until everyone else was dead. His last opponent, a Career, ran himself to distraction trying to find the blended Justin, eventually dying of dehydration. But it took days. And Justin just sat there, becoming the underbrush surrounding him.

Our district escort - who is brand new this year - selects from the Girls Reaping Ball. "Megan Hayes!" I take the stage silently and terrified.

"Uber Crossinguard!" A boy of 14 joins me. We shake hands and are escorted into the Justice Building.

* * *

Technically, you only need one female and one male mentor to go to the Capitol. Tressa will mentor me, as she has done for decades and decades. Justin will mentor Uber, as he needs to learn the trade. But Ivo accompanies us anyway, even though he technically doesn't have an official job. Maybe he'll work sponsors.

The media launches on us more than they usually do because we are last year's winners. After meeting our stylists, we embark on the Tribute Parade in the City Circle, riding before the President in our chariots. After the parade, we head into the Training Center for three days of training, which begins the very next day.

Most of the tributes are a lot bigger than me, especially the Careers. Most can handle weapons, with the exception of District 12, but they are always weak. I stick by the camouflage station, following advice from Justin. I'm not supposed to show off my strengths, according to Tessa, but if my competition is as strong as it looks, I'm going to be dead in a matter of weeks anyway. So why bother?

At the end of three days, I show off my painting talents to the Gamemakers. It earns me a 5. Even Uber scores higher than me, though I am in such a funk, I don't know what he did to get it, or even remember what his score was.

The fourth and final day and night are devoted to the interviews with Caesar Flickerman. I don't pay attention to anyone's answers except for Uber, and only out of loyalty. And then it's my turn.

"Megan Hayes! We hear you are a talented painter. Think it can help you win?"

I shrug at Caesar's question. "I don't know."

"Can you give District 6 a second dramatic victory after last year's exciting one?"

I know that's a lie; Justin is considered an underwhelming Victor because he hid and didn't even kill anyone. I shrug again. "I don't know."

The buzzer sounds, but by the end of the evening, I am being called Megan "I don't know" Hayes.

I have horrible nightmares that night.


	2. Chapter 2: The Arena

**Chapter 2: The Arena**

I say goodbye to my mentors early the next morning just before we board the hovercraft. Upon arrival at the arena site, we are hustled underground and divided into individual rooms like pigs to pens. I am escorted into the glass pod, which seals around me as I am pushed up, up, up...

Into a dense forest. There is the Cornucopia in the middle of the trees. It's in a clearing, which serves as a good point of reference, but the rest of the arena is just forest. It's strange that the horn would be placed in the middle of all this wilderness; usually, if there is wilderness, it is set far off from the Bloodbath action. That's the way it was in Justin's arena last year.

When the gong sounds after a minute, I don't dive for a weapon. I don't even dive for a backpack. I turn tail like a coward and run away. I intend to hide in this Games for as long as I can. Until some other tribute manages to find me, or I win by default.

Eventually, I come upon some rocks near a waterfall. Using sap from nearby trees and mixing it with the foam of the rapids to make a kind of paste, I manage to create a gray color and later myself in it. Eventually, I become one with the rocks. And now I wait.

There are many cannons throughout the day. But as I lie in relative safety and get my heart rate to calm down, I manage to keep careful count. By the end, I reach... 22? That can't be right! We are already at the Top Two at the end of the first day! Did no one else run away as I did? And if not, who is the other survivor? A Career, probably. Maybe that alliance eliminated the rest of the field, lost control and turned on each other early.

The sun mercifully sets and all the faces of the dead appear in the sky.

The boy from 1. Then both from 2, 3, 4, 5, Uber, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.

So, the girl from 1 made it through the day. She must be as shocked as I am that I am her last competitor. She will no doubt be hunting for me. So I keep perfectly still, as I fall asleep...

When I wake, it is early morning, and I hear a rustling in the leaves nearby. Poking open one eye, I see her. The muscular girl from 1, stumbling towards the waterfall nearby and taking long gulps. Between each sip, she winces in pain, and I can see that she barely escaped the Bloodbath with her own life. Her broadsword lays at her side. She is wounded and weak.

This is my one chance to go home alive. And I seize it.

Sneaking out of my camouflage hideout, I pick up the sword as silently as a mouse and approach my last enemy. Desperately, I plunge the blade into her pack. She cries out in pain and tries to turn, but seizes up and falls dead.

Hardly daring to believe what I have just done, I bend over her even as the last cannon sounds and Claudius Templesmith announces my Victory:

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the winner of the 60th Annual Hunger Games: Megan Hayes of District 6!"

Not even 24 hours in the arena, and I am already a Victor. The fourth Victor for my district. District 6 has won two years in a row.


	3. Chapter 3: 75th Reaping

**Chapter 3: 75th Reaping**

President Snow is displeased as he places the Victory Crown on my head. I can tell. I heard rumors, after I was pulled from the arena, that he was thinking of discontinuing the painting and camouflage stations in the Training Stations. District 6 is just not supposed to win, especially back-to-back wins. But there is nothing they can do about it now.

I go home with Tressa, Ivo and Justin. Justin is thrilled to have me, his good friend, come back alive. My fellow Victors tell me about the Victors' Code, which forbids personal and emotional attachments. It is especially important that I resist marriage or a relationship. That's OK. I was never very popular in school, and have never had any boy look at me that way. The one boy who was nice to me was Justin, but we are just friends. To get married would be to get married for marriage's sake, and for us that would look and feel weird. But the Code explains why no one - not even Tressa - has ever gotten married.

* * *

The next decade and a half goes by in a blur. And soon, President Snow is announcing the twist for the Third Quarter Quell.

There are still only four of us in the Village, as there has never been another District 6 Victor since me. Well, actually, now there are only three of us - old Tressa finally died about three years after I was crowned. It took the combined efforts of Ivo and Justin to carry her out of her mansion, and we had a fine funeral to her.

Justin and I were only small children, barely school-age, when Haymitch Abernathy of District 12 won the Second Quarter Quell, the year before Ivo triumphed. And old Haymitch only just pulled off an unusual win last year, when he got both his tributes to reach the Top Two and then got them both out of the arena alive.

President Snow goes through the last two Quell twists. And then he announces the one for this year: "On the 75th anniversary, as a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the tributes will be Reaped from their existing pool of Victors."

I am going back into the arena. After 15 years, and thanks to no Tressa to protect me anymore, I am going back into the arena.

Our Reaping won't be the only one that's hard. Johanna Mason of 7, Woof Casino of 8, Daniel Bernhardt of 9, and that Katniss Everdeen beauty of 12 - they will all be guarantees too.

The only question is: who will accompany back in? I am only 31. Justin is 32. Ivo is just 40, still strong. Age-wise, it could be a lot worse. But, we're not talented. Ivo, a little in battle, but he has gotten slower since his win twenty-four years ago.

* * *

The day of District 6's Reaping is hot and sultry. Justin and I trade needles before we are escorted out to the stage. Morphling. Numbs the pain. Ivo, though he has never partaken in those kinds of drugs for soothing remedies, does not begrudge us.

The Mayor reads the Dark Days Treaty, then all of our names. Our district escort, the same one from when I won a decade and a half ago, now pulls from the Reaping balls. First, the one slip of paper that everyone already knows has my name on it. "The female tribute from District 6: Megan Hayes."

"The male tribute from District 6: Ivo Lockhearst..."

"I volunteer as tribute!" Justin, not Ivo joins me on stage. As we join hands, with dark circles under our eyes and both as high as a kite, I know we must be the laughingstock of Panem. And that we're gonna die.

On the train, Ivo takes a break from mentoring us so we can watch the other Reapings. Most of the other tributes are older than us, or at least our peers. Like the brother-sister Career duo from District 1 who won back-to-back years a few years after Justin and I pulled off the feat. The male from 2, Brutus, is a volunteer and in his 40s, his district partner Enobaria looks about my age. Finnick Odair, the young man who won at the youngest age ever... five years after me? His partner will be an 80-year-old named Mags, likely a peer of Tressa.

Johanna Mason and Woof Casino and Daniel Bernhardt have their Reapings go in a blur like mine because they are drafted immediately. The District 10 Victors are in their 20s. Chaff, a forty-something from 11, is in. The girl from 12, the beautiful Katniss Everdeen. Then old Abernathy is called, but the boy, Peeta bravely sacrifices himself, as Justin did for Ivo.

I am drugged out through our arrival in the Capitol, the Chariot Tribute Parade. But Training is a lot more memorable.

I am heartened to see that the painting stations are still intact. Justin and I head right for them. We are not training so much as trying to find some last moments of fun and joy. Pretty soon, Peeta Mellark from District 12 joins us. He is very beautiful, and a painter himself. And so nice - not something you find in a Victor. Any Victor. The girl, his bride-to-be, is more aloof, hanging around Mags and the District 3 tributes. It's a shame they will not have a wedding. I thought it would be wonderful.

Which is why, when Haymitch approaches Justin and Ivo and me that there is a plan to save Katniss and Peeta from the arena, I jump at the chance. They have their whole lives ahead of them, and they deserve to live them.

After the three days, and our private sessions with the Gamemakers, I pull a 6. I did marginally better than I did fifteen years ago, but I am more heartened that District 12 both pulled un-heard of perfect scores of 12 each.

I get high and stay high throughout the day leading up to the fourth and final night: the interviews with Caesar. When it is my turn, Caesar makes a few jokes about my nickname: Megan "I don't know" Hayes. But unlike that previous interview, I say nothing at all. For three minutes straight. And neither does Justin. Neither of us has it in us anymore.

But our fellow Victors do. And they use their interviews to fight.

When I go to bed that night - possibly my last night - I am actually filled with hope that this cockamamie plan of Haymitch's can be pulled off.


	4. Chapter 4: The Quell

**Chapter 4: The Quell**

Justin and I say goodbye to Ivo in a whirlwind the next day. My mentor hugs me close and whispers to me: "You can do this, Megan. Tressa would be very proud of you."

I know he's only trying to make me feel better. Maybe when this is all over, Ivo can at least go on living. He can, which is probably why Justin volunteered. We've both been long dead anyway. It just took us some years.

When I am pushed up into the arena, I am surrounded by water. The drugs from the morphling I took this morning are starting to wear off. There's the Cornucopia, on an island in the middle of this sea, with rocky spokes jutting out to create wedges that trap two tribute pedestals apiece. I am confined with Johanna Mason of District 7. Even though she has no axe, I bet she would not hesitate to kill me with her bare hands.

Also: I can't swim. And I don't know how many of the Victors trapped in here can either.

So when the gong goes off, I leap from my pedestal and reach the nearest rocky spoke in one bound and flee into the trees. I take off into the jungle trees.

I hide throughout the day, just like I did on my first and only complete day fifteen years ago. But unlike that first day, only eight cannons are heard. After the sun finally falls, the faces of the dead appear in the sky:

James Logan of District 5. Justin (I feel a pang of guilt). Woof Casino and Cecelia Sanchez of 8. Daniel Bernhardt and Marian Green of 9; the former is a surprising death. The District 10 female, I think her name was Tiffany. and Seeder from 11. That's it.

I wonder how Justin placed. I am sure he made it to the island somehow, he would have run into the fight bravely, but likely would have been the first to go. I nestle into the trees and vines and go to sleep.

* * *

Two cannons awake me during the night. And soon, I hear screeching.

It is the wee hours of the morning, judging by the lightening of the sky and air around me. And then I see the reasons for the screeches. Monkeys, attacking three tributes. I recognize the crop of blond hair instantly: Peeta Mellark of District 12. He's with his lady love, Katniss Everdeen, as well as Finnick Odair of District 4. Weird alliance, but to each his own.

And the monkeys won't let them escape to the safety of the beach that I know is just beyond. In fact, one lunges at Peeta feet from my hiding place.

I don't think. Only act. I throw myself in front of the boy and take the fangs of the beast myself. His bite stings like nothing I have ever felt in any needle and certainly not in any arena.

I can already feel myself slipping away as gentle hands carry me out of the jungle trees and onto the beach. And then into the soothing tide. I see Peeta's face and hold onto it like a lifeline, as he speaks soothing words.

"See the pretty sky?" And he makes me look up at the rising sun. "All those colors! Don't think about anything else."

So I don't, as I slip away from this life. I hope he can win and be with his girlfriend. Unlike many of my colleagues, I believe their love story is real. I sacrificed myself for him and he didn't even know my name.

But maybe it's better that way.

BOOM.


End file.
